bugs

There was a commercial for Volkswagen that aired during Super Bowl Sunday last week, but it didn't make Kona's best of the best. Still, having seen it a couple of time since, perhaps it should have been. Do you remember it? It's based on a game called punch dub, and every time a person sees a Volkswagen before the other person, they get to punch their partner and call out the color of the car.

I had some friends who played a car game like this, punching each other each time one saw a vehicle with one light not working. They called it pediddle. Ridiculous name, but then punch dub is just as silly. But it's real. And that's a big part of why this commercial is so good. You can relate to it. Everyone can play. There's the kid with his grandfather. The two Amish folk. The drunk guys in the limo.

When Lewis Black went off at the Emmys a couple of years ago about TV becoming obnoxious with the amount of information splayed on the screen, he hit the nail right on the head. Sad to say, things have not gotten better since that rant. In fact, they're worse. I don't know what's worse, the annoying pop-up ads on the television screen or the annoying pop-up ads on the computer screen. At least in the case of the latter, it's the equivalent of a commercial and -- somewhat -- understandable.

But when you're watching a television show and have to ignore the bug in the corner, then be subjected to a variety of pop-up promotions and reminders for shows you may or may not be interested in watching it's enough to make you turn off the set. I'd say it's enough to make you switch channels, but where can you go to avoid the intrusion? PBS?

It's the end of an era on CSI. The Las Vegas Crime Lab is losing the head man. Gil Grissom is packing up his office and leaving Las Vegas. The night shift supervisor, the most influential scientist on the staff, Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom will be a character that won't easily be forgotten, let alone replaced.

If Laurence Fishburne is wise, he'll work with the producers and writers to make Raymond Langston a very different kind of leader.

Looking back at the Grissom years, there are distinctive beats that William Petersen brought to the character and the show. To me, there are six reasons why Grissom will be hard to replace.

The New York Postreports that Fear Factor host Joe Rogan got into a fist fight with guest Jonathan Baker, who was once a contestant on The Amazing Race and was filming an episode of Rogan's NBC reality game show. The paper reports that during a stunt involving alligators, Baker's Playboy model wife was yelled at by Johnny "Fairplay" Dalton from Survivor (ugh, what a horrible episode of Fear Factorthis must be), and then when Baker tried to stick up for his wife, Rogan punched him a couple of times.

Fear Factor executive producer Matt Kunitz admits there was a confrontation, and there is even a clip of the fight on the Fear Factor site. Check it out (video on upper left). I can't get it to work, but there is audio and pics at Baker's official site.

(P.S. I wonder if this was a real fight, or just publicity for the show, which happens to return on June 13?)